Saturday, September 7, 2013

Bitcoin

Bitcoin is one of virtual coins in the internet which anyone can use. We buy some amount of bitcoin at an exchange station. Some online stores accept the paying with bitcoin. It is an advantage to use bitcoin without exchange fee.

Bitcoin has a potential to change the world. That is, bitcoin is not connected to any nation.
To begin with, any coin is a symbol of trust. There are no coins or bills which is equal to real value. The $1 coin is worthy of 1$ because everyone thinks so. To speak precisely, the USA guarantees that $1 has valuable for 1$, and citizens trust the USA. Therefore, when a nation is involved in a chaos such as wars, the value of the coins in the nation would decrease. They cannot use their national coins in a nation extremely vulnerable.

Then, who assume the value of Bitcoin?
The answer is nobody, or all of the users.

Whenever a lot of people trust Bitcoin, it works as a real coin. In contrast, if no one accepts the deal using Bitcoin, it would be completely useless.

There were some virtual coins provided by the companies. Mileage is popular. Linden dollar is virtual coin only available in Second Life, a virtual community. The providers are responsible for the maintenance of their coins. On the other hand, who is responsible for Bitcoin is quite unclear.

Some nations are concerned very much to Bitcoin. They worry about Bitcoin for two reasons. First, Bitcoin may be utilized for illegal activities such as money laundering. Second, Bitcoin is hard to taxable. If most people use Bitcoin rather than real money, the government hardly control their finances itself.

Germany has accepted Bitcoin as legal currency. It is a brave decision.
In contrast, the USA seems to restrict the usage of Bitcoin. I also understand the position of the US government.